Things Dreamt Of
by Mellia Bee
Summary: "Wyatt?" she asked. He didn't act like he'd heard her, because then he was on his feet again, plunging forward. Lucy scrabbled at her buckle until it gave, and she and Rufus made it to the doorway in time to see their companion bolting up the walkway like a man demented. Fix-it, Wyatt/Jessica. Posted in conjunction with Timeless Big Bang 2017.
1. Lucy

**Things Dreamt Of**

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They never did figure out exactly what happened.

It had been a mission like any other, only unusually casualty-free. Flynn had been one step ahead of them, but at the last minute Wyatt had managed to rally some civilians to their cause. Lucy was the first to admit - while she had the passion and experience teaching to a captive audience, Wyatt was the one with an uncanny, untaught ability to stir people's souls in the hour of need.

He had saved the day. Well, more or less. Flynn had escaped again, and a building still went up in flames, but it would have burned down within the year anyway from a lightning strike, so - well, it was actually pretty good, given their track record. Flynn hadn't managed to carry out his most recent historical assassination attempt, and the timeline remained mostly undisturbed, and that was enough.

History - that precious imprint of the fluid passage of time - was still safe for one more day.

They jolted back to the present, the Lifeboat wobbling slightly under the tremendous force of its rotating belts. Rufus grumbled under his breath, something along the lines of wear and tear and additional maintenance needed, but Lucy could tell he wasn't really cross; just relieved to be back safely. Wyatt's throat worked as he swallowed hard against the relentless nausea that came with being looped through time, but he grinned jauntily at the others and undid his seatbelt.

"Good work out there today," he told Rufus. "Saved our skins with that line you fed them."

Rufus chuckled breathlessly, flipping the switches to power down the Lifeboat, and Lucy couldn't help smiling too, even as she ducked her head to focus on unbuckling her own seatbelt. Wyatt stood, stooped to keep from smacking his head on the side of the curved ceiling, and moved toward the door as it opened.

Then his breath caught audibly, and Lucy looked up just in time to see Wyatt's knees give out completely, cracking against the metal flooring with twin _thumps_ that left her wincing in sympathy. His face had gone dead white, slack in astonishment and undefinable emotion as he stared out the door at something out of Lucy's view.

Her heart clenched into a sickened knot. What on earth could they have changed that would make him look like that?

"Wyatt?" she asked.

He didn't even act like he'd heard her, because then he was on his feet again, scrambling out the door with a rush, _falling_ down the five feet to the ground, not even waiting for the steps to be rolled up. Lucy scrabbled at her recalcitrant buckle until it gave, and she and Rufus made it to the doorway just in time to see their companion bolting up the walkway that led to the computer stations like a man demented.

"Wyatt?" she cried again more shrilly, worry clutching at her throat - and then she heard her own cry echoed.

"Wyatt?"

A young woman hurtled down the stairs from the observation platform, blonde hair flying as she rushed onto the walkway. "Wyatt, what's wrong?" she demanded - and then he reached her, slammed into her, wrapped his arms around her waist and shoulders so tightly that her feet came off the ground. With a choking gasp he buried his face in her shoulder, staggering in a mindless circle.

"Ohhh," breathed Rufus, as if suddenly realizing something. "Is - is that…?"

Overwhelmed, Lucy pressed shaking fingers over her mouth, glad tears stinging her eyes. "I think it is," she whispered.

Out on the walkway, Wyatt was still holding the woman as though he would never let her go - and he was weeping, stifled sobs shaking his shoulders violently, taking her with him as he sank to his knees. The entire room was silent, all the technicians staring at the reunion. Even Agent Christopher was frozen in astonishment, Connor Mason peering over her shoulder with equally wide eyes.

"What _happened_?" the strange woman demanded, looking up at Rufus and Lucy with alarmed concern. Lucy caught the gleam of a wedding ring on the hand that cupped protectively around the back of Wyatt's head, fingers threading through his hair as he shook in her arms.

"Um," Rufus started and then paused. Swinging his legs through the door, he slid out of the Lifeboat with more haste than caution, since the stair crew seemed as frozen as everybody else. He reached up a hand to help Lucy, but she barked her elbows on the edge of the metal belt anyway. "Are you - um." He tilted his head. "Would you be Jessica Logan, by any chance?"

The woman turned a shade paler, and then nodded. Lucy was struck by the sudden bizarre feeling that this woman - Jessica - knew them, perhaps even quite well, while they'd never seen her before except in the pictures they sometimes glimpsed on Wyatt's screen, or the smiling, well-worn photo he always carried over his heart.

This woman in front of them wasn't smiling now, though. She looked worried, alert and defensive, every inch a soldier's wife.

Rufus blinked, cleared his throat, scratched the back of his head, looked to Lucy for help. She stared back, hands fluttering, for once at a loss for words.

"Well - you died," the engineer finally said, rather more abruptly than he'd meant. "Five years ago. Uh. For us, anyway."

Jessica's eyes widened, understandably shocked at the sudden realization that her husband had no memory of the last five years of their marriage - and then her gaze grew distant, sharpened, and she caught a sudden breath.

"Five years - oh Wyatt, honey." She turned her head, smoothing both hands through her husband's hair and across the shoulders of his period coat, trying to lean back far enough to see his face. Her southern accent was a trifle more pronounced than his, softening her words. "It was San Diego, wasn't it? It's okay, I'm okay."

Wyatt shook his head and then pulled back, gripping her shoulders fiercely. He was practically vibrating from head to toe, face wet, tears clumping his eyelashes together. "I'm sorry," he choked, eyes devouring her face as if this was the last time he would ever get to look at her, the last words he would ever get to say. "I'm sorry. I love you. Forgive me, Jess."

"You came in time." Jessica was crying too now, but that great, bright smile that they'd seen in her photographs shone through her tears. She cupped his face in her hands, smoothing his wet cheeks with her thumbs. "You came in time. It's a long time ago, now."

He lifted a hand to circle her wrist and leaned into her touch hungrily, almost involuntarily, but continued to shake his head. "I didn't," he rasped, voice increasingly hoarse and tight, almost pleading. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and years and years of haunting guilt, exhaustion and desperate loneliness drenched his confession. "I didn't. I drove off and I left you and I couldn't find you and it took _two weeks_ …"

The rush of words ended in a shuddering breath as Wyatt reached up to touch the unscarred skin of Jessica's throat. His mouth twisted and Lucy suddenly realized that the last time he had seen his wife had probably been to identify her dead body, laid out on some coroner's table, cruel ligature marks scored deep into her brutalized flesh.

No wonder he used to drink on nights when the team wasn't together. How could any man find rest with such an image in his mind's eye?

Jessica clasped her husband's face more tightly, thumbs smoothing away the dampness beneath his eyes. "But you found me in _this_ time," she whispered intently, and then leaned in and kissed him right there in the middle of the walkway to the Lifeboat, completely disregarding the array of security personnel, technicians, and engineers looking on. And as for Wyatt Logan - well, he wrapped his wife in his arms again and kissed her back with all the trembling, hungry, passionate intensity of a man who has loved and lost and then regained the love of his life against all probability.

Lucy blinked, dabbing at her eyes, and turned to Rufus with a watery smile. The tender-hearted engineer looked about ten seconds away from blubbering like a baby, but he scrubbed at his face with his sleeve and nodded back at her in silent agreement. This reunion was far, far too raw and emotional and sacred to be on public display - the couple needed their privacy.

Apparently Agent Christopher had the same thought, because she took control of the situation then, ordering the room to be cleared. Connor Mason, inquisitive to the last, showed no signs of departing with the rest of the reluctant employees, so the agent took him by the shoulders and began steering him out by force.

"You two," she said, indicating Lucy and Rufus with a jerk of her chin. "Get out of those costumes and come straight upstairs. I want a full report."

They obeyed, although not at once. For some reason it felt right to stand watch until the last of the employees had left the room, until Jiya turned off the flashing yellow lights and blaring klaxon. Then, and only then, did they carefully step around the embracing couple still kneeling in the middle of the walkway, and climb the steps to the computer platform.

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"So you're saying Jessica Logan was killed five years ago?" Agent Christopher shook her head in disbelief. "I don't even want to imagine what that did to him. They're both strong-willed and hard-headed, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a more attached couple. She comes every time to see him off, just in case..."

Lucy nodded, the many endings to the unfinished sentence reeling through her thoughts. _In case time changes - in case he dies protecting us - in case something like this happens._ She had known for a while that the soldier was carrying a world of hurt behind the facade he wore so smoothly, though she'd only seen it crack a few times - and then today the burden had been lifted and the sudden relief had sent one of the strongest men she'd ever known to his knees.

From her place in the conference room she could see out the large window overlooking the launch pad, though Wyatt and Jessica were just out of sight, still sitting on the floor of the walkway to the Lifeboat. They'd been there for a solid half-hour, but nobody was about to interrupt them.

A sudden clatter broke Lucy's train of thought as Rufus dropped the tablet he and Jiya had been skimming onto the table, shoving back and throwing his hands in the air.

"Okay, I have _no_ idea how this happened." He gestured disjointedly at the tablet, at Lucy, at the window overlooking the Lifeboat launching bay. Behind him, Jiya looked equally mystified as he continued. "At least with your sister you had direct ancestors who were affected, but they don't. There is _literally nothing_ we could have done back there that would just - cancel out her murder like that."

"It could have been anything," Lucy suggested. "A butterfly effect. Maybe someone was in the building when it burned down, or wasn't there when they should have been. Or the fire engine hit someone - or two people never met because Flynn stole their car in his getaway." She shrugged a little dreamily, lost in the possibilities. "We'll never know."

Agent Christopher nodded, expression thoughtful, but Rufus' voice jumped incredulously. "Do you have any idea," he demanded, "what the astronomically tiny chances of that would be? Statistically it's pretty much impossible, and I don't say that lightly."

Lucy didn't have to come up with a response to that, because Wyatt and Jessica finally appeared in the launching bay below, arms around each other as they slowly climbed the steps to the computer platform. Wyatt looked drained, swept with emotion, but there was a lightness to his step and a looseness to his shoulders that had been absent before, and his face was as radiant as that of the woman walking beside him. They made an incongruous picture, what with his period clothing and her modern dress, but nobody seeing them could doubt that they belonged together.

"Wyatt!" Lucy called, knocking at the window and waving excitedly. Rufus quickly crossed the room to stand beside her, looking down at their friend.

Wyatt's head whipped up at the noise, but he immediately relaxed at the sight of his friends above him at the window. The widest smile they'd ever seen spread across his face, and he punched his fist into the sky in a triumphant gesture of celebration, tugging Jessica into his side. Lucy felt an answering smile tug at her own cheeks as Jessica looked up and laughed, a frank friendliness in her bearing, a deep affection in her eyes as she glanced over at her husband's face.

Rufus grinned and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Go clean up and then get up here!" he hollered, gesturing in case his voice couldn't make it through the thick glass. Some of his meaning must have made it across, because Wyatt immediately responded with a thumbs-up, and turned to go.

As the happy couple headed for the dressing rooms, already deep in conversation again, Lucy's eyes drifted irresistibly back toward the Lifeboat. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost _feel_ the flow of time passing around them - an inevitable progression that they had somehow altered for the better. Her breath caught in her throat with the thrill of sheer wonder that she felt with each trip back into time.

"'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,'" she quoted softly, and then quirked a sudden half-smile at Rufus, standing next to her at the window. "God, fate - whatever you want to call it. Maybe they were just always meant to be together."

At the end of the launching bay below, Wyatt opened the dressing room door for his wife, and they walked through side by side. It would be a long road for them, especially with their sudden five-year discrepancy in memories, but Lucy was confident they would make it work.

"Yeah," said Rufus after a minute, quietly, almost wonderingly. "Maybe they were."

Lucy leaned sideways until her shoulder bumped into his, comfortable in their companionship. Beneath her shirt, her locket rested warm against her skin, a perennial reminder of her sister.

Thoughtfully, she raised a hand to touch it.

Somehow she felt more hopeful than she had in a very long time.

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 **Dagnabbit. I swore I'd never write fanfic for a TV show - and then Timeless came along. Apparently I have a thing for reuniting doomed couples.**

 **Seriously, though - give me a man who's in love with his wife. I'm a complete sucker for that kind of character any day. :)**

 **Much thanks to usa123 for encouraging me so much in the writing of this story. This chapter is specifically for you, hon! If you're looking for a good Timeless fic writer, you all should go check out their stories. Hands-down some of the best on this site. I'm not even kidding.**

 **This story is written in conjunction with the Timeless Big Bang on Tumblr. There are two more chapters, which will follow shortly.**

 **Lucy's closing quote paraphrases Shakespeare's Hamlet I.V.167-8.**


	2. The Logans

**The Logans**

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Wyatt got as far as the parking lot before he started to realize just how much had changed.

His truck - the blue, beat-up,1985 Chevy that he'd inherited from his grandpa - was no longer parked in front of the building.

For precisely three seconds, Wyatt wondered if it had been towed - it wouldn't have been the first time - and then Jessica brushed past him, leading the way toward a small, white, four-door sedan. Fortunately, she seemed too preoccupied sorting out the car keys to notice the sudden hesitation in his step, or his carefully hidden relief as she slipped into the driver's seat.

Because Wyatt had suddenly remembered that he had absolutely no idea where he - they - lived.

The ride home was quiet. Jessica was focused on driving, and Wyatt was equally focused on making sure he would be able to find his way back again. If this was going to be home - well, it would be awfully embarrassing to lose his way more than once.

He reached out at a stoplight, and took her hand, pulling it across the center console to lace his fingers in hers. Jessica smiled sideways at him, her face lit by the last glow of the sunset, and he realized he'd forgotten the way her dimples made her eyes brighten. The realization somehow managed to simultaneously sadden and exhilarate him - because while he couldn't believe he'd ever forgotten in the first place, he also couldn't wait to coax those dimples back again.

The house they eventually pulled up at was small, but nice enough. Probably a rental - Wyatt made a mental note to hunt down the paperwork later and take a look.

Jessica retrieved her hand to put the car in park, and then looked over at him. "You okay?" she asked.

There was a lump in his throat as big as the whole state of Texas, and his heart was pounding, because five years was a _long, long time_ , but Wyatt smiled and nodded. "Yeah. You?"

"Mmm." Jessica studied his face. The sun had set now, and dusk was gathering quickly. "So where did you live - um - over there?" she suddenly asked.

It took a minute for him to figure out what 'over there' meant. "Oh. Apartment."

"Was it nice?"

He thought of the lonely, bare rooms, the precisely made bed, the alcohol in the cupboard, the hopeless mess of newspaper clippings and pictures and string on the wall. "No."

She leaned in over the space between their chairs, and he met her halfway. The kiss was very careful and tender, almost tentative. He stared at her in wonder after it was over, trying to memorize her features in the rapidly dimming light. "I missed you," he breathed, almost inaudibly. "So much."

For a moment, he thought she was going to say something, but then she apparently changed her mind and reached for the door handle.

"Come inside," she told him, evading his grasp playfully, but with a touch of something else that he couldn't quite read in the darkness. "Get reacquainted with everything."

He came.

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A teenage girl met them on the steps of the house. "Hi, Mr. Logan, Mrs. Logan!" she called out cheerfully. Jessica swung her purse off of her shoulder and slipped out of the arm he had wound around her waist.

"Evenin', Becky," she greeted pleasantly. "Go on in, honey - I've got to talk to Becky for a minute."

Wyatt had entertained a brief, dizzying idea of carrying his wife over the threshold on this, the first night of the rest of his life with her - but on second thought, her idea was better. For one thing, he had no idea which key on his keyring would open their front door at all. Reluctantly, he left her talking to the young neighbor and continued across their narrow porch, fumbling with the keys.

It actually wasn't as hard as he'd expected - the house key was in the same place on the ring that his apartment key had been, and the door swung open easily into a comfortable little front room. He took two steps in, and then stopped dead as the memories swept over him.

There - that was his grandmother's rocking chair, the one he and Jess had spent a whole summer refinishing. Their wedding picture hung over the fireplace. Across the far wall was the entire collection of Louis L'Amour books that Jessica had loved so much and kept pestering him to read. He hadn't been able to look at them afterwards - hadn't been able to look at any of it. It was all gathering dust somewhere in a storage unit in California - or at least, it had been in the time before.

Now, though, it was part of a life. His life - _their_ life.

Jessica's smile from their wedding picture drew him almost unconsciously further into the room, but then he caught sight of his own face beside hers and stopped. The face in the photograph was younger, happier, at once both awed and hopeful.

Suddenly Wyatt felt very, very tired. All the heady elation drained away, and he braced both hands heavily against the mantelpiece.

This wasn't fair to her.

She had spent five years growing closer to him, building a life with him - and he had spent those five years learning to be alone again, learning to live with the consequences of his actions. He wasn't the young man she had married anymore, and he'd never had the chance to grow into the man that had lived in this house with her.

The front door shut quietly behind him as Jessica came in, but he didn't turn, and she didn't say anything.

"I'm not him anymore," said Wyatt at last, belatedly jerking his head upward at the young man in their wedding picture - the man with less blood on his hands, fewer deaths on his conscience. "I'm…" He floundered for an adequate word and came up with nothing. "... sorry."

The couch creaked as Jessica sat down.

"Tell me," she said simply.

And so Wyatt clenched his fists over the edge of the mantel until his knuckles turned white, and laid his soul bare. Every night of drinking, every day of reckless behavior, hour upon hour of hopeless plotting. The rage, the guilt, the bad decisions, the self-hatred, the PTSD. He figured she knew how he'd struggled with those to some extent after his tours, but he told her everything anyway, words stinging like bile.

When he was done, the room fairly rang with silence.

Wyatt swallowed hard, looking down at his shoes. "I can leave, if you want," he offered. The words killed him to say, but he meant them sincerely.

"Do you want to?"

He steeled himself for rejection and then turned and looked at her for the first time since coming into the house. She looked tired, and there were wet tear tracks down her cheeks, but he was surprised to see she didn't look angry or repulsed.

"No," he breathed, and it was the absolute truth. For five years he had wanted nothing more than to have her back, and now he did, and every sight of her was like a miracle - even when she was tear-streaked and exhausted and the whole situation was breaking his heart.

Jessica wiped her hands across her face, and he saw the stubborn set to her chin that he'd fallen in love with all those years ago. "Then stay. We both knew the risks when you started this assignment, and I'm willing to work this out if you are."

She always had been the braver of the two of them. Wyatt stared almost incredulously, heart pounding. After all that he had done, all that he _hadn't_ done, and she still wanted him.

He took an involuntary step toward her, and his foot hit something soft.

Half-distractedly, he looked down, and then did a double-take. Very distantly, he felt himself stooping and watched his own hand pick up the thing on the floor: a stuffed pinto pony, well loved, well worn. Somehow he felt this ought to be significant. From the couch, Jessica was watching him almost apprehensively…

… And then the penny dropped and realization hit him so hard that his knees weakened and he felt his heart stop.

The girl - _babysitter_ \- at the front door, the four-door car instead of his old two-door truck - the clues had been there from the beginning. He'd just been too wrapped up in his wife to notice.

The toy slipped from his nerveless hand and hit the floor.

"She's three," said Jess very quietly. Wyatt could barely hear her over the roaring in his ears, the world tipping and tilting and turning inside out as if he was on the Lifeboat a hundred times over.

He turned away to hide his face, staring sightlessly at the wall. At length, when he felt more in control, he took a long, shaky breath and turned around again.

"Can I see her?"

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Jessica led the way to a small bedroom, moving quietly as she edged the door open. "She's asleep," she breathed almost inaudibly as she tugged her husband into the opening.

Sometime since they'd entered the house, the moon had risen, and now the moonlight flooded in through filmy curtains. He couldn't see much, just a tangle of fair hair and the curve of a childish cheek and about six stuffed animals, but it was enough to turn his knees liquid. Jessica stepped in, tucking the blankets a little more snugly around her - _their_ \- daughter, but he didn't dare follow, opting instead to hover in the doorway.

Once they'd returned to the living room, he turned to his wife. He could see in her eyes that she was realizing all over again what it meant for him not to remember any of this.

"What kind of a father am I?" he asked hoarsely.

The bleak concern in her eyes vanished for a moment, submerged in a sudden flash of understanding. Jessica was one of the only people in his life who had known about him, about his own rotten childhood. "A good one," she assured him. "Not perfect, but neither am I."

Better than his own dad, then. A little of the horrified panic that had seized his heart at the realization of his fatherhood seemed to ease. But still - "Is she afraid of me?"

Jess shook her head. Her eyes looked suspiciously wet again. "She loves you. She wants to be just like you when she grows up."

Wyatt didn't know what to do about that, so he ducked his head and looked away. "Tell me about her?"

Jessica sat down, and he haltingly sat on the other end of the couch, folding his hands tightly between his knees.

"She was born while you were deployed," his wife started, absently stooping to reach for the fallen toy pony and pulling it into her lap. Wyatt knew he must have hated himself at the time for missing the birth, but now he found himself relieved - this was one less memory he didn't have.

"She's three," Jessica said again, and he realized her hands were shaking as she fiddled with the little pinto. "She loves horses and tea parties and - cowboys. She - there's a pair of pink - pink cowboy boots that she won't stop wearing…"

Her voice cracked, and she bit her lips and bowed her head over the stuffed animal. Bright tears dropped onto the soft cotton mane, and suddenly the distance between them was far too great. Wyatt moved to hold her and she sank into his arms with a stifled sob, clinging to him as he whispered fierce promises into her hair.

Because he loved her. He _loved_ her, and she loved him, and they were alive and here, together. They could work through everything else.

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Jess slept in the next morning. They'd stayed up far, far too late, trying to adapt to their new reality. She had finally fallen asleep mid-sentence, so he'd reached across and snapped off the alarm clock before it could go off in the morning. He himself hadn't slept much at all. There was way too much to think about.

Now he rolled out of bed, moving carefully so he wouldn't wake her. She was snoring a little, and a wave of affection flooded over him - an eagerness he hadn't felt in a long time.

Breakfast. He could make her breakfast.

The house was silent as he found his way downstairs, and there was the odd feeling that he was navigating somebody else's home. It would be a while before he knew his way around, but Wyatt had lived in too many places to let that stymie him for long.

Navigating the kitchen proved to be a whole new challenge. Nothing was where he expected, and there were a lot of new dishes and things that he didn't recognize, along with some that he distinctly remembered breaking a long time ago. The eggs were just starting to sizzle in the pan and he was hunting systematically through the cupboards for a loaf of bread when a sound behind him made him turn.

A little girl stood in the doorway.

She was scrubbing at her sleepy eyes with one childish fist, wearing the incongruous combination of a nightgown and pink cowboy boots. A mess of tangled blond hair tumbled down over her shoulders, and she was clutching the pinto pony from the night before by the head.

Wyatt stared.

She blinked frankly back at him, with eyes that he recognized from his own reflection. Then, quite spontaneously, she rushed across the kitchen on quick little feet and threw her arms around his knees. Spatula in hand, staggering from more than just the physical impact, Wyatt peered down into the little face that tipped up towards his.

"Up!" she chirped sleepily, bouncing on her toes. "Up, Daddy!"

Wyatt had never been good with kids, but he obeyed, wincing as the cowboy boots dug into the top of his leg. She flung her arms confidently around his neck, and the stuffed pony bounced against his back.

Well, at least she wasn't afraid of him. What did one say to a kid?

"Hey - princess," he tried, just now realizing that he had no idea what to call her. Little girls liked princesses, right?

He got a sleepy scowl in response. "I'm a _cowboy_ princess," she corrected him.

Other than the eyes, she looked so much like Jess - everything from the fair hair to the perfect, pouting lips. Some tension inside his heart relaxed a little. If she looked like Jess, it would be easy to love her.

"Okay, cowboy princess," he tried again, and dropped his voice confidentially. "Where do you think your mother keeps the bread?"

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Jessica came down later, tugging her robe around her. Her eyes widened a little at the sight of her husband wearing her "I Heart Texas" apron over his pajamas, stirring the eggs. Their daughter perched comfortably on his hip, chattering gaily. Wyatt held her a bit awkwardly - he plainly wasn't a man who had ever really handled small children - but he didn't look too terrified.

"Morning," she said, stepping into the kitchen.

His face softened, brightened when he looked up and saw her. Immediately he set down the spatula and came across to meet her. There was a yearning passion to his kiss, a need for reassurance - and she could tell that he was still finding his footing in their new normality.

It would definitely take a while, and they would most likely have to go see somebody to help them work it through. Then again, he was a soldier and she was a soldier's wife. They'd handled hard situations before.

"Hey," he greeted her, after the kiss ended. Jessica knew that she would probably never fully understand what he had been through, but the fact that she could stand there barefoot in her pajamas and he would still look at her as if she was an angel incarnate was telling in and of itself.

It was a little much to deal with at the moment, so she leaned into his side and transferred her attention to their daughter, circled in Wyatt's other arm. "Are you helping Daddy?"

"Mm-hmm!" Their daughter nodded vigorously, swinging her feet. "Daddy forgot, so I help him find the bread and orn-jooss…"

Wyatt hefted her into a more comfortable position, trying to direct the eager little cowboy boots away from himself. "Turns out Daddy forgot a lot of things," he quietly told his wife with a significant raise of his eyebrows. "So she's been my little helper this morning."

He was still tentative and unsure with their little girl - she could see it in the way he held himself - but he was trying so hard.

And if there was one thing that Jessica Logan knew about her husband, it was that he generally succeeded at anything he set his mind to.

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 **Just because you get your wife back, doesn't mean things haven't changed. In one of the episodes (can't remember which one at the moment) Wyatt mentions that his wife wanted kids. Statistically, a couple starts having children within two years of trying, so barring health issues, they would almost certainly have had a child in the five years between her death and the TV series.**

 **Also, the apron is totally a real thing, for all you Texas folks out there.**


	3. Rufus

**Rufus**

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"Wait, you're a _dad?_ "

Rufus barely heard Lucy's surprised exclamation - he was too busy choking on his drink and trying to mop up where he had done a spit-take. He'd always sort of figured that those sorts of surprised reactions were faked for YouTube, but apparently not.

At least Jiya wasn't here - she'd never have let him live it down.

"Yeah." Wyatt was grinning again. The man had been smiling ever since the three of them had met each other for lunch. It had been a quiet couple days, and this was the first time they'd seen him since the momentous trip that led to Jessica coming back to him.

"Well - tell us about it." Lucy gestured with a paper napkin.

Sheepishly, Wyatt ran his hand through his hair. "Well, she's three. Kind of blonde, looks like Jess. Wait, I think I've got…" He trailed off, digging his phone out of his pocket and scrolling through the pictures.

This was an unexpected development. Rufus groaned in mock horror. "Oh, we really did mess time up. He's turned into one of _those_ parents - the kind that pulls out a picture every other minute."

"Hey," Wyatt protested, though he didn't sound too upset. He finally found the picture he was looking for and held the phone out. "Look at that face and tell me you wouldn't do the same."

The girl really was cute. Rufus squinted. "Is she wearing cowboy boots?"

"And a princess dress." Lucy waggled her eyebrows teasingly. "Mmm, I like her style."

"Shut up." The retort was friendly and without heat, and Rufus was pleasantly surprised at the flash of unguarded affection in Wyatt's face as he looked at the picture of his own daughter. "She's three - cut her some slack."

Across the table, Lucy sipped her drink. "And how are you doing with all this?" she asked. "You okay?"

Rufus watched their friend's face closely as he put his phone away. There was a peace in the soldier's eyes that he wasn't used to seeing, even as Wyatt sobered a little. "We're getting there," he said. "It's not easy, but we're getting there, and it's good."

"You gonna stay on the team?"

It wasn't the question Rufus had meant to ask, but it made its way unexpectedly out of his mouth and hung in the suddenly silent air between them. Across the table, Lucy frowned a little and shook her head warningly. The two of them had been wondering about that ever since their last trip, but she hadn't wanted to bring the question up right away..

Wyatt played with his glass. His eyes were grave, fixed on the ceiling lights reflected in his drink. "I wasn't sure at first," he finally admitted, "but Jess and I talked about it." He looked up resolutely. "As long as Flynn's out there, time's going to keep changing. I figure the best way I can serve is to help take him down and end this for good."

Rufus started breathing again with relief. Still… "But what if you come back and they're gone again?"

The soldier's lips tightened, jaw set, but his eyes were steady. "That's a risk we're all taking. As long as Flynn keeps going back, I could lose them whether or not I go. Besides," his voice took on a more reassuring tone, and he reached out to put a hand on Lucy's shoulder, "We still need to get your sister back."

It was Lucy's turn to choke a little on her drink, eyes suspiciously wet and filled with unspoken gratitude.

"You don't have to do that," she managed quietly, but they all saw the way her hand fluttered at her throat, closing around the locket she always wore.

Rufus nudged her foot under the table with the toe of his shoe.

"Sure we do," he said, and thought of his own brother. What he wouldn't do for that kid… He would tear the universe apart if he had to. Then again, he was a navigator; time was at his fingertips. On her own, Lucy would never be able to save her sister. She needed him to steer the Lifeboat, and the soldier they both trusted to watch their backs.

"Sure we do," he repeated, and shared an understanding look with Wyatt across the table.

Alone, they were negligible. As a team, they were unstoppable.

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 **Rufus didn't have too much to say, which surprised me. Hence the shorter chapter. Only the epilogue left!**


	4. Epilogue

**Two Days Later**

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Wyatt fastened the last button on his coat. In front of him, Lucy struggled with the enormous hat and voluminous skirts of her latest costume, staggering up the steps to the Lifeboat platform. Rufus was already at the top, catching her as she stepped on her hem and toppled forward with a little shriek.

Trying very hard not to laugh at his friends, Wyatt paused on the stairs. Then he looked up and nodded to Jessica, standing above him on the computer deck. She nodded back, already wearing her game face. They had said their goodbyes earlier, in the dressing room, and now it was time for business.

Life goes on, regardless of circumstance. Every soldier's wife knows that.

With one last look at his wife, Wyatt squared his shoulders and then turned to face his team. In his hand he felt the angles of a small flash drive, containing pictures of his wife and daughter. Nobody would say a word, he knew, when he stowed it aboard the Lifeboat. Rufus already had one in there, and so did Agent Christopher.

Because just in case - _just in case_ something happened, they would want to keep the memories.

There was a sense of comfort, he realised as the three of them climbed into the Lifeboat, in being with his team. He'd been doing okay at adapting to his new life - his little girl was very forgiving when he made mistakes with her, and he and Jessica had found a counselor and begun to rebuild their relationship - but Lucy and Rufus would always understand him in a different way than anybody else. They had seen him in some of his darkest moments, and they knew where he came from and what he had survived.

 _There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will._

It was a quote Wyatt's grandma used to have hanging above the sink at home. Once, he had hated it, back when it felt like the world was conspiring to hurt him. Recently, though, the soldier had found the words dancing through his head more than once, bringing with them a sense of thoughtful calm.

Perhaps there really was something or someone out there, guiding them all towards something greater. Against all odds, he had his wife back. Now it was time to fulfill his promise and help Lucy find her own family.

"Everybody ready?" asked Rufus, slipping into his chair. Lucy all but fell into hers, muttering crossly under her breath as the picture hat fell over her eyes and yards of crinoline pooled around her feet.

There was a perverse normality to the situation - a rhythm that was easy to fall back into. Here, in the cramped time machine, pressed shoulder to shoulder with his team, Wyatt felt his skin prickle in anticipation. He smiled.

"Yeah," he said, and took his seat before leaning forward to help Lucy with her buckle. "Let's do this."

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 _The End_

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 **The quote above Wyatt's grandmother's sink is from Hamlet, Act V, Scene II. Figured if I'm going to begin with a quote from Hamlet, I might as well end with one. And I really feel like it works well with the oft-addressed question of the show - who is in charge of our actions?**

 **Thanks for reading! This was fun, but don't worry - I'll head back to my regularly scheduled Captain America stories now.**


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